Memphis restaurants are not known for their outstanding customer service. To some, bad service is even a point of local pride. I used to be in those ranks, but I have to say I’ve finally had enough.

I recently walked into a restaurant that I visit about once a month and waited 25 minutes before even being acknowledged, and that was just the beginning. Service has declined the last several times I’ve been there, and I like the food, but the food quality has finally dipped below my tolerance for the wait staffs’ attitudes.

I’m not a prima donna or anything. I don’t expect to be waited on hand and foot. Ambiance, customer service and all of that are a distant second for me to the actual food. I don’t even want the servers to shower me with those fake “customer service” slogans that their managers force out of them. All I want is efficient service from people who have some idea of what the hell they are doing.

A professor of mine thought that everyone should have to work in the service industry for at least one year, so they would get a better idea of how poorly we treat one another. People are a-holes. They want the world for nothing. I’m sensitive to this. I empathize. I want to smack the people at fast food restaurants that expect to be treated like royalty for buying a crappy $5 combo meal.

I believe, strongly, that you get what you pay for, and you are not entitled to throw a fit in a Wendy’s because they put ketchup on your burger when you asked for mayonnaise. Either hand it back and make them fix it or shut the eff up and eat it. That’s it.

I even subscribe to the belief that you should always tip, at least 15% no matter how poor the service, because the job is tough and putting up with people deserves at least that.

My only experience in the food industry came many years ago when I worked at Taco Bell. I wasn’t the sickeningly sweet person who asked if you needed some extra of this or wanted to try a such-and-such today. I was polite but not too friendly, offered my advice when asked, made sure you got what you ordered and received the proper change. That’s all I ask in return. I’ll take competence over congeniality every day of the week.

But for the love of god, Memphis restaurant owners, don’t act like you’re doing me a goddamned favor by being open. Like my life is somehow better because you let me in the door and will, eventually, maybe, grudgingly bring me my food and drink refills.

Anyone still buy it?

I own a bridge you might be interested in.

I wrote this article yesterday about a thwarted purse snatching at the Bookstar in Poplar Plaza.

I’ve received a couple of emails asking for more information on the guy who tried to seal the purse, which I’ll work on and hopefully have some updates soon.

While running through the cop checks this morning, one of the officers in felony response told me what most impressed him when he showed up at the scene that night.

He said that though a crowd of no less than 10 people chased Joseph Stewart, caught him and held him for the cops, no one hurt the man. He said they just held him there, and once the cops showed up most of the Samaritans just wandered off, returning to their Friday night/Saturday morning.

A few people stayed and gave an account of what happened to the officers, but no one turned Billy Badass and roughed old boy up, even though many of them were probably hopped up on caffeine and adrenaline. Think about that the next time you read something about Memphis being No. 1 in the country in violence.

I thought at first short film from Screaming Frog studios in Los Angeles was going to be an Office rip off, but it ended up being a bit darker. The thing about satire is it always has a spooky way of coming true. Funny and scary.

Last night was the first half of a mini metal fest at the Hi-Tone, with Toxic Holocaust, Skeletonwitch, Soilent Green and Hate Eternal. It continues tonight with local boys Bury the Living and Adios Gringo joining Oakland’s High on Fire, who is here for the second time in three months. Doors open at 9 so stop reading this and get down there.

While tonight’s show is more focused on hardcore and stoner metal, last night’s was a old fashion kick in the teeth from some very, very heavy bands that would make even the staunchest rebel want to wash in holy water afterwards.

Black metal guitar solos flowed with the PBR, while Mansonesque frontmen shredded their vocal chords for the thrill of the crowd. The gore on t-shirts at the merch table rivaled the works of George Romero, and the double bass probably cracked the foundation of the Hi-Tone.

Skeletonwitch hung deer skulls from their amps and New Orleans’ Soilent Green proved
why they are one of the best around at extreme metal.

“How many of you (expletives) bought the new album?” asked Soilent Green frontman Ben Falgoust.

A few screams answered him.

“How many of you stole it off the internet?”

Even more screams.

“That’s what I’d do,” Falgoust said. “I’m not getting paid why should anyone else.”

I left before Hate Eternal could suck my soul out of my body and send it to the abyss, but I did hang around long enough to snap this pic.

Would you let your kid walk from midtown to the University of Memphis area? How about from Bartlett to Cordova? I’m not talking about small children; I’m talking about pre-teens, 9, 10, 11, and 12-year-olds.

Aside from the trouble with finding good sidewalks that one could use (or public transit for that matter), do you trust your child to walk home from school? To walk to the store, which outside of Midtown, is probably miles away from your house? Say you live in the Evergreen district near North Parkway and Avalon, would you let your 10-year-old walk to the Schnuck’s on Union?

Lenore Skenazy, a writer for The New York Sun, gave her son $20, some quarters for phone calls a subway map, and a MetroCard, and left him at the Bloomingdale’s in Manhatten. The purpose was so he could find his own way home, which he did. Apparently he is begging her to let him walk from Queens to Manhatten next. Read about her experience, both with her son and the reaction from parents to her piece, here.

Understand a few things about the author of this post. First, I have no children. Second, I was definitely NOT a Free Range Kid, though many of my friends were. My parents would not let me ride my bike from our house in Ellendale to the Bartlett library, which is about 3 miles away (this was before Kirby-Whitten connected St. Elmo with Stage). They barely let me drive to and from work and when I was 16.

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It takes about an hour to call them all if nothing has happened - Memphis, Shelby County, the ‘burbs, North Mississippi and the surrounding counties. But this morning is different.

This morning takes a little longer. Not because of a sudden crime wave or a rash of fires but because of the Tigers going to the national championship.

“Hi, Commercial Appeal, anything going on overnight or early this morning?”

“Tigers won last night,” the dispatcher says.

They certainly did. By 15. In a Final Four game. Mississippi State posed a bigger threat than national powerhouse and media darling UCLA.

But the calls have a different air. A different tone. The responses received from dispatchers and police spokespeople are usually just this side of polite. Curt. Bored. Amused, even, as if I were silly to imagine ANYTHING could happen outside the Memphis city limits.

But this morning, everyone wants to talk, and they want to talk about the Tigers winning it all.